I saw an article recently describing how Millennials view something or the other, but what caught my eye was where the author said the age range for Millennials is those born between 1980 and 1999. My immediate thought is that this is why lumping all Millennials into one category on any particular issue is absurd.

You simply cannot lump a 37 year old with an 18 year old. They are totally different stages of life. My life at 37 was completely different from my life at 18. Even if you cut off "Gen Y" at 1995, it is still absurd to include people who are 37 years old with people who are 22 years old. Again, these ages represent totally different stages of life for most people.

This does not even address the reality that Millennials (and all previous generations) come from widely different backgrounds. Other important factors include race, economic status, family structure, culture, religion, political beliefs, and so forth. If you were to take a randomly selected group of one thousand people born in 1986, you would have a huge range of life experiences.

We need to stop dismissing an entire generation just because it is trendy to do so. The World War II generation dismissed the Baby Boomers, and both of them dismissed Generation X in the early 1990’s. Now everyone is bashing Millennials, and it is utterly ridiculous. People are people, and this nonsense is the cousin of racism. There are good and bad in every group, so to assume everyone over a twenty year age range is the same is utterly ridiculous. Stop it.